1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to position or location estimation of mobile communication devices and, more particularly, to enabling control of privacy for crowdsourcing.
2. Information
Mobile communication devices, such as, for example, cellular telephones, portable navigation units, laptop computers, personal digital assistants, or the like are becoming more common every day. Certain mobile communication devices, such as, for example, location-aware cellular telephones, smart telephones, or the like may assist users by enabling estimation of their geographic or civic locations. For example, in an outdoor environment, certain mobile communication devices may obtain an estimate of their geographic location or so-called “position fix” by acquiring and measuring wireless signals from a satellite positioning system (SPS), such as the global positioning system (GPS) or other like Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs), or from cellular base stations belonging to a wireless communications network. For example, position methods such as Advanced Forward Link Trilateration (AFLT) and Observed Time Difference Of Arrival (OTDOA) may be used to determine the location of a mobile device from measurements of signals received from cellular base stations by the mobile device.
In an indoor environment, certain mobile communication devices may be unable to reliably receive or acquire satellite signals or signals from cellular base stations to facilitate or support accurate location of the mobile device. The position of a mobile device may then be estimated based in part on information gathered from other systems. One such system may comprise a wireless local access network (WLAN) communication system comprising a number of wireless access points, such as, for example, WiFi access points (APs), Bluetooth® beacons (also referred to herein as access points or APs), Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE) beacons or APs, Home Base Stations or Femtocells, or the like. A position estimate for a mobile device may then be obtained using measurements made by the mobile device of Radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted by one or more access points, femtocells etc. in a WLAN including measurements of round trip signal propagation time (RTT), received signal strength indication (RTT), code phase difference, time of arrival (TOA), time difference of arrival (TDOA), or other measurements obtained through communication with the one or more wireless access points, femtocells, etc. The position estimate may be determined by applying one or more positioning techniques, such as trilateration, multilateration, RF pattern matching, etc. to the measurements obtained by the mobile device.
The determination of a position estimate may be assisted by information for measured APs and home base stations, such as their locations, transmission power, transmission timing, RF signal power receivable at different locations, or the like. In some cases, some or all of the information for the measured APs and femtocells may be obtained at a previous time or at previous times from a large number of mobile devices that crowdsource measurements and/or other information for visible APs and home base stations to one or more central servers. However, the mobile devices that perform the crowdsourcing may need to support privacy in the case of some APs and home base stations and either not crowdsource any information or crowdsource only selected information (e.g. the identity and approximate location of an AP but not its transmission characteristics). The support of privacy may in some cases have regulatory or other legal backing and/or may be supported voluntarily by some vendors and/or operators for mobile devices. Other types of crowdsourcing (e.g. based on collecting visual information via photos or acoustical information via sound clips) may be subject to similar types of privacy requirements. However, it may not be clear to a mobile device that is capable of performing crowdsourcing what privacy requirements may need to be observed for particular APs and home base stations—for example, for which APs and home base stations the mobile device should refrain from performing crowdsourcing. There may thus be a benefit in enabling the support and control of privacy when performing crowdsourcing from mobile devices.